Michigan Telephone, VoIP and Broadband blog

Okay, so it’s a slow news week, at least with regard to the topics we cover (why do you think so many sites resort to running articles that look back at the year just ending, or attempt to make predictions about the year to come? It’s an easy way to fill a couple of articles, or more if you really stretch it out, and most of the content can be pre-written earlier in the month). But this site seems to have some genuinely useful tips for keeping your online identity (and, to some degree, your real-world identity) safe. The second one (Numbr) is even on-topic for this blog:

Fed up with spam? Tired of telemarketing calls? Feelin’ paranoid about identity theft? … Here you’ll find a bunch “throwaway” web tools that can help you out.

5 “DISPOSABLE” Web Accounts to Keep Your Identity Safe | MakeUseOf.com

With regard to the disposable email account, in addition to the Mintemail that is mentioned in the article, I’m also aware of Spambox.us and Trashmail (the latter even offers a Firefox extension that makes creation of a temporary address on an “as needed” basis relatively easy). It always perplexes me when you go to a web site to download some free software that has been offered on one of the major freeware sites, and then they demand an e-mail address before allowing you to download the software - I wonder what percentage of the e-mail addresses they get are actually valid (and of those, how many are addresses that are technically valid, but never checked except when the user is expecting something, such as a registration key or a verification link). I’d think it would not be worth the trouble of weeding out the “anonymous@noneofyerbusiness.com” type address that they must get, and the others that are just as fake, but not so obvious.